Faculty Profile

Young-mee Yu Cho is Professor of Korean Language and Culture. Her main research interests comprise Korean language, linguistics, and Korean studies. In Korean phonology, she has worked on syllable structure, laryngeal contrasts in consonants, and lexical stratification while in pragmatics her research focuses on a spectrum of social meanings of honorifics in the context of Asian linguistics. As a specialist in Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL) education, she co-authored the most popular Korean textbook series, Integrated Korean (2000-2020) and a textbook for Korean heritage learners, Integrated Korean-Accelerated 1 & 2 (2021), in addition to Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language: Theories and Practices (2021). As President of the American Association of Teachers of Korean, she led the task force to produce the National Standards for Korean Language Learning (2012) and its curricula application (2015). In addition, she has been working on the Korean materials in the William Elliot Griffis Collection at Rutgers Libraries, producing Korean Photographs in the William Griffis Collection (2019) and Annotated Korea Letters in the Griffis Collection: An Annotated Selection (2024). In 2023 she launched a Korean Humanities Translation series, DITTA (Rutgers University Press).

Education

• Ph.D. in Linguistics, Stanford University
• B.A. in English, Seoul National University

Areas of Specialization

• Korean Language
• Linguistics
• Foreign Language Education
• Translation

Publications:

Textbooks

• Integrated Korean. Beginning 1,
• Integrated Korean. Beginning 2,
• Integrated Korean. Intermediate 1
• Integrated Korean. Intermediate 2
• Integrated Korean. Accelerated 1
• Integrated Korean. Accelerated 2

Monographs

• Korea Letters in the William Elliot Griffis Collection: An Annotated Selection (with S. Park) (2024). Rutgers Univ. Press.
• Rereading Chang Lee Wook (2022). (with M. Kim) Seoul National University Press
• Parameters of Consonantal Assimilation

Translation

• You Call That music?! : Korean Popular Music Through the Generations. (with B. Park & J. Yoon) (2022) Routledge. London.

Edited Books

• Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language Pedagogy: Theories and Practices (2021). Routledge. London
• Pathways into Korean Language and Culture

Digital Archives

• Griffis Korea Letters & Unpublished Manuscripts of William Elliot Griffis. Rutgers University Libraries.                 https://collections.libraries.rutgers.edu/griffis-korea-letters-and-manuscript

Books

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

• "Three-Way Laryngeal Contrast in Korean." (forthcoming) The Wiley Blackwell Companion to Phonology, Second Edition.
• "Transformative Learning Through Critical Pedagogy in Korean Language Education." (with H. Chun) (forthcoming) N. Fraschini & J. Kaier eds. Innovative Methods in Korean Language Teaching. Routledge.
• "A Korean-English Translation Curriculum in Collegiate KFL Program." (forthcoming) S. Barnes-Sadler & J. Kaier eds. Translation and Korean Language Education: Translation as Co-Learning Mechanism. Routledge.
• "Grammaticalization in Progress: Differing Patterns of Korean and Japanese Plurality." (2023) (with K. Lee) Asian Languages and Linguistics. 34:1. 48-75.
• "Innovative Strategies for Stabilizing Enrollment in Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL) Education." (2023) (with H. Chun) E. H. Uebel, F. Kronenberg & S. Sterling eds. Language Program Vitality in the United States: From Surviving to Thriving in Higher Education. Springer. 251-265.
• "National Standards & Korean as a Second Language." (2022) Byon, A & D. Pyun eds. The Routledge Handbook of Korean As a Second Language. Routledge, London. 364-385.
• "KFL Program Building in the Era of Expansion: Innovative Local Strategies for Emerging Challenges" (2021) (with H. Cho, H, Chun, K. Ko and H. Lee) in Korean Languages in America. 25.1. 1-28.
• "A Case Study from a Sijo Course at Rutgers University: Implementing Language-Content Connections." (2020) (with E. Yeum) Korean Language Education. 170. 233-272.
• “Laryngeal Contrast in Korean.” (2011) Companion to Phonology. Eds. Marc van Oostendorp, et. al. Wiley-Blackwell.
• “A Historical Perspective on Nonderived Environment Blocking: The Case of the Korean Palatalization.” (2008) Eds. S. Inkelas and K. Hanson. The Nature of Word: Essays in Honor of Paul Kiparsky.
• “Melody, Rhythm, and Prosodic Structure in Linguistic Chants” (with M. Saiki) (2007) Eds. J. Grimshaw, et. al. Architectures, Rules and Preferences. Stanford University, 431-445.
• “Semi-syllables and Exhaustive Syllabifications.'' (2003) (with T. King) Eds. C. Fery and R. van de Vivyer. The Syllable in Optimality Theory Cambridge University Press. 183-222.
• “Diglossia in Korean Language and Literature: A Historical Perspective.” (Spring 2002) East Asia: An International Quarterly. 3-23.
• “Variation and Language Change in Optimality theory.” (1998) (with A. Anttila) Lingua. 104. 3 1-56.
• “A Lexical Account of Inflectional Suffixes in Korean.” (1995) (with P. Sells) Journal of East Asian Linguistics.
• “Inalterability as Prespecification,'' (1993) (with S. lnkelas) Language 69. 3.

Courses Taught or Developed

• Elementary Korean 1, 2
• Elementary Korean-distance learning course 1, 2
• Summer Intensive Korean 1, 2
• Summer Intensive Course on Korean Culture
• Beginning Korean Reading and Writing for Heritage Students
• Intermediate Korean Reading and Writing for Heritage Students
• Online Elementary Korean 1, 2
• Intermediate Korean 1, 2
• Advanced Korean 1, 2
• Advanced Korean for Business 1, 2
• Advanced Readings in Korean 1, 2
• Readings in Korean Literature 1, 2
• Korean Translations: Introduction to Practical Translation and Translation Theories
• Korea in Translations: Modern Literature and Film
• Korea in Translations: Contemporary Media
• Korean Interpreting
• Translation/Interpreting Internship
• Introduction to Korean Cinema and Cinematic Language
• Korean Literature in Translation 1, 2
• Introduction to Korean Culture, History, and Society
• Topics in Korean Studies
• Taste of Korea: Culinary Politics in Contemporary South Korea
• Advanced Topics in the Korean Language and Linguistics (both undergraduate and graduate courses)
• Korean Language in Culture and Society
• Independent Study in Korean
• Honors in Korean
• Writing Systems of the World (Honors course)
• The History of East Asian Writing Systems (both undergraduate and graduate courses)
• Graduate Seminar in Phonology (Graduate course)
• Seminar in East Asian Societies: Food in East Asian Tradition and Transformations
• The History of the Korean Script and Calligraphy 1, 2
• Korean Folk Traditions
• Traditional Korean Poetry: Sijo [BTAA course]
• From Sijo to K-Pop: Song Lyrics as a Literary Genre [BTAA course]
• Teaching Korean as a Foreign Language (KFL): Theories and Applications (Graduate course)Byrne Seminar: Korean Hip-Hop: A New Poetic Intervention
• The Language Engagement Project 991: World Language Courses: Korean Business Culture, Exploring Seoul Through Films, East Asian Contributions to World Cuisine, Revisiting Gender, Class, and "Alienness" in Korean Culture.

Selected Awards and Distinctions

• Chair of the Humanities Plus Initiative. AY 2024-2025
• Featured as a Korean linguist in an hour-long podcast. K-Pod (Korean American Story). 2023.
• Korean American Day Honoree. The Korea Economic Institute of America (KEI). 2021
• "The 2020 Excellent Scholarly Publication Award" for Photographs of Korea in the William Elliot Griffis Collection. The Ministry of Culture, Sports, and Tourism, The Republic of Korea
• 31st Sejong Presidential Award for Merit in Korean Language by The Republic of Korea, 2012
• Awarded a Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Grant for “The Battle between Language and Music that Determines the Form of a Melody Pattern in Vocative Chant” (with M. Saiki) 2005-2007
• Korea Foundation Grant for “Korean Studies Curricula in the Age of Multimedia Education.” (with A. Choi, K-H Choi and H-Y. Kim) 2003-2005
• Tuttle Language Grant for “Multi-faceted Approach to the Teaching of Korean Literature/Culture” (with K. Choi, K. Chun, and H. Kim) 2002-2003
• Mellon Fellowship, National Foreign Language Center, John's Hopkins University, 1994
• Fellowship, Summer Workshop on Curriculum Development, National Foreign Language Resource Center, University of Hawaii, 1993